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Forum Discussion
Very slow wired speed
I have an Orbi with one satellite running latest firmware. No QOS or other non-usual settings. When I copy between two wired devices, one of them connected to the main unit and the other to the sate...
Turn the Satellites off. They don't need to be tested. What you need to test is the Orbi router with v1.x FW. The WAN speed on the router is what needs to be checked. If you can do this before it updates.
You can try this test and see after you down grade the FW:
https://www.duckware.com/tech/router-wan-to-lan-throughput-test.html
It will have you do a factory reset then connect to the main internet behind a different router. IF you don't use the setup wizard, I presume the router shouldn't auto update till after the test is ran. I suppose you can do this as well if you manually downgrade the router on your current system and then factory reset it and run a speed test after it seems to be online and don't run the set up wizrard.
epsilonkorewrote:I have a little time before I leave for work, so I tried downgrading to the last of the 1.x firmware. Pre Daisy chain, to see if your theory is correct (makes sense to me...) I tried to downgrade my satellite and then router to 1.12.0.18... by the time I was done downgrading one satellite, then moved to the second satellite, the first satellite had already auto upgraded back to 2.0.1.4. I suppose I could unplug the internet from the Orbi so it cant detect a newer firmware, downgrade both satellites and then the router... but as soon as I plug it in for testing its going to upgrade again... we really need a way to disable auto upgrades. Wish I had woke up earlier, I need more than 30 minutes to test with.
OK, so over the weekend I fixed my Orbi's performance! I now have 943 WAN-LAN and 955 LAN-LAN wired performance! I am not quite sure what step in my madness actually fixed it, but I know it was a sequence of firmware flashes/erase/30-30-30 and flashing to a different ROM that finally did it. This is a system I perfected back in my WNDR3700/R6300/R8000 Tomato/DDRT flashing days. Sometimes certain flashing combinations with older ROMs would restore functionality after a custom ROM broke it. So I theorized that going from start to finish in the Orbi OEM firmware history might restore it back to factory performance.
My steps: Basically I downloaded to my desktop, the very first 1.x firmware for satellite and router, then I downloaded the 1.x halfway in the middle of its run, and then the final 1.x firmware. I downloaded 2.0.14 for good measure. I then unplugged my internet connection to the Orbi Router to prevent auto updates. First I did a software ERASE, once it booted back up, I did a 30-30-30 erase on the Router and Satellites (something I had not done in the past, I didnt know the satellites had a reset pin as well). I then flashed all of them to the original 1.x firmware, rinsed and repeated to the mid point 1.x, and again to the final 1.x. At that point I did some LAN-LAN tests and noticed speed was restored! Still, without internet and auto upgrade messing with my mix, I manually updated to the final 2.0.1.4 version I am using now. LAN to LAN still rocked around 950-955Mbps! I then plugged it back into the internet and my LAN to WAN has hovered in the 920-945 range (just a few Mbps less than a direct PC to Modem setup!). I then restored a backup from before (a true test to see if the backup and my custom settings were part of the problem) and everything has held! All services installed/configured and running perfectly along with full performance!
I tested your "no satellite" theory in the start, and while it didnt change what happened, I did notice that wireless performance is way faster with the satellites off. (if you are in range of the router that is) My iPhone X with satellites on, his a max of 584 standing next to the router. With the Satellites off, it hits 641! Same for my Macbook Pro/Surface/AppleTV's, they all have a healthy improvement when the Satellites are off, hitting new household records. Of course, the satellites on provides superior coverage, and they will be left on (thats the point of the Orbi purchase for me) but it was interesting to see how much wireless backhaul impacted performance. I wonder if wired backhaul in 2.1 (when its finished) will aleviate this deficit?
Everything being said, I am back in the "Happy Orbi User Camp". Its a robust trio of hardware, that still needs some software refinement, but even with 2.0.1.4 I am very happy now that my LAN speeds have been restored.